Behind The Seams Issue 9

A charity tackling the problems caused by making, consuming and wasting clothes.

BehindtheSeams ISSUE9

Cover photo: Rose Nkore, TRAID’s Sorting Supervisor celebrates 20 years of reusing clothes. ©Kit Oates, 2019

BehindtheSeamsContents 20 Years of Making Fashion Better................................3

An Education Toolkit for a Sustainable Future....... 18

20 Years of TRAID............................................................... 4

What Does the Future Hold for Environmental Education?...................................... 19

20 Years of TRAID............................................................... 6 20 Years of Creating Sustainable Wardrobes...........20 Let’s Fix Fashion Now........................................................ 8 Londoners Put One Million Garments Back Into Use........................................................................ 9

Francesco Colluci Styles the Windows of TRAID...........................................................20

From Individuals to Brands........................................... 10

Garment Worker Safety in Bangladesh is Under Threat, Again....................................................22

Fashion and the SDGS: What Role for the UN?...... 11

Turning Waste Into Opportunities.............................24

What We’re Reading......................................................... 12

Is Child Labour Out of Fashion?

Meet Arshi’s Family and Find Out...............................26

Seeds of Change................................................................ 13 AMMA. Making Textiles Naturally..............................28 TRAID’s Organic Cotton Funding is Mitigating Climate Change....................................... 14

How to Donate the Right Things to TRAID.............30

Ethiopia’s Organic Cotton Heroes.............................. 16

20 Years of TRAID’s Charity Shops.............................30

www.traid.org.uk  @traid

 TRAIDcharity

 @traid

Charity registration number 297489

Shop second-hand at TRAID charity shops TRAID Brixton, 2 Acre Lane, London, SW2 5SG. TRAID Camden, 154 Camden High St, London, NW1 0NE. TRAID Clapham, 28 St John’s Road, London, SW11 1PW. TRAID Dalston, 106 – 108 Kingsland High St, London, E8 2NS. TRAID Hammersmith, 119 King Street, London, W6 9JG. TRAID Harrow, 324d Station Road, London, HA1 2DX. TRAID Kilburn, 70 – 72 Kilburn High Road, London, NW6 4HS. TRAID Peckham, 14 – 16 Rye Lane, London, SE15 5BS. TRAID Shepherd’s Bush, 154 Uxbridge Road, London, W12 8AA. TRAID Westbourne Grove, 61 Westbourne Grove, London, W2 4UA. TRAID Wood Green, 51 – 53 High Road, London, N22 6BH Shop second-hand at TRAID online www.ebay.co.uk/str/traidcharityshop www.depop.com/traid Pass on clothes to TRAID Book a free home collection www.traid.org.uk/collections or call 020 8733 2595 Use a TRAID clothes recycling bank www.traid.org.uk/clothes-donations Drop clothes at a TRAID charity shop www.traid.org.uk/shop-at-traid

Published September 2019. Designed by Zerofee.org.

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20 Years of Putting #secondhandfirst This special issue of Behind the Seams focusses on some important milestones for TRAID. Not least a celebration of 20 years of our work with second-hand clothes to stop the negative impacts of fashion on people and planet.

Much of it pioneering.

From being the first charity to enshrine the prevention of sending wearable clothes to landfill as a charitable objective; to further enriching our aims in 2005 by including the critical role of education to empower people to build a more sustainable wardrobe; and in 2009, our early recognition of the devastating impacts of fast fashion becoming the first UK charity to exclusively fund global work to improve environmental standards and working practices in the supply chains making our clothes.

We also reveal the progress made one year into our 23% campaign which has seen Londoners put one million garments back into use – and counting.

The level of participation has been uplifting, joyful and inspirational.

It’s a much needed reminder that we all have the power to trigger positive exponential change in our day-to-day lives.

Changing the fashion industry – and the growing chorus of people and organisations demanding change – is this issue’s theme.

TRAID’s CEO Maria Chenoweth reflects on 20 years of leading the charity and the role we’ve played to

change attitudes to second-hand and its benefits.

Our Head of Campaigns and Education Andrea Speranza introduces a new era of education at TRAID with a toolkit that empowers educators to effect change. Angela Russ, Head of International Programmes shows how our long-standing commitment to supporting cotton farmers to grow organic establishes farming systems that mitigate climate change. While Enedina Columbano, Commercial Director at TRAID, reflects on the impacts of 20 years of charity retail.

We are joined by Mary Creagh, MP for Wakefield and Chair of Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee who led the recent inquiry into the unsustainability of fast fashion.

Paola Deda, Chief of Section at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe who explores the intimate links between a sustainable fashion industry and the domino effect that would have on the successful implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. While Tansy Hoskins reminds us that hard fought changes to successfully improve factory safety in Bangladesh after the devastating Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in 2013 are now under threat, and that we must remain vigilant.

We can all create change. In 2009, TRAID funded our first project to create more sustainable production in the fashion industry supporting around 500

By Leigh McAlea, Head of Communications at TRAID

cotton farmers in Benin, West Africa to stop using chemical pesticides and grow organic.

Ten years on, 83% of the organic cotton produced in Benin is grown by farmers supported by TRAID, while 2% (when in-conversion cotton is included) of all the organic cotton grown globally is due to our funding, the incredible work of our partners and the now thousands of farmers we support.

TRAID is not a big charity by any means, and yet, we have created tangible positive change in the organic cotton sector, nationally and globally, which has improved the health, incomes, soil and biodiversity of farmers, their families and their communities.

With your continued support, by sourcing more of your clothes second-hand, by passing on what you no longer wear to TRAID for someone else to use we can do even more.

Photo: TRAID Dalston. ©Leigh McAlea 2019

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“Be inspired by TRAID’s mantra to put secondhandfirst. Let’s make fast fashion unacceptable.”

20 Years of TRAID

By Maria Chenoweth, CEO at TRAID

My lifelong interest in second-hand clothes has shaped my values, my career and my attitude to fashion.

As a child growing up in the 70’s, there was a lot of stigma attached to wearing second-hand. Despite the strong taboos, my love affair with second-hand began when I offered to help at the school jumble sale. As I went through the clothes, I was completely overwhelmed to see such beautiful clothing from all eras in an array of materials, patterns and designs.

Me and Michael Lake, my best friend at the time, lived for Saturday mornings and the scrum of the jumble sale. There were no decent clothes shops in Clevedon, the small Somerset coastal town where I’m from, so we took matters into our own hands by customising our finds on an old Singer sewing machine.

As soon as I could, at 16, I moved straight to London where Camden and Kensington markets became my mecca for clothes - especially beaten up 501’s and 1950’s vintage.

Looking back, it’s no surprise that I ended up at the helm of the UK’s first charity to fundraise exclusively by reusing second-hand clothes.

It’s important to remember that when TRAID launched in 1999, there was still a lot of stigma attached to getting clothes from charity shops.

Changing this is where TRAID came into its own.

We established a network of charity shops that didn’t apologise or hide the fact that the clothes were second-hand. Instead TRAID celebrated it.

We believed, and still do, that second-hand clothes are for everyone.

Our sorting processes, stock selection, charity shop interiors, window design and crucially, our staff’s sheer love of second-hand clothes, have helped to break down many of the barriers to charity shopping.

TRAID has also driven some of the changes in what motivates our customers to shop second-hand by educating people about the unsustainability of clothes, and funding projects to benefit the people and places making our clothes. Now, more people

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Photo opposite: Maria Chenoweth, TRAID CEO. ©Kit Oates, 2019

understand that fashion is accelerating climate change and creating mountains of clothes waste, and are increasingly turning to second-hand to resist fast fashion.

So here we are, 20-years on, and the fashion industry is recognised as the fourth most environmentally polluting industry in the world. In the UK, the Environmental Audit Committee scrutinised the unsustainability of the fashion industry, and this year released its findings which concluded that retailers are failing to address its social and environmental impacts and need urgent regulation.

At last, in society and politics, there are signs that the devastating impacts of fast fashion are being understood and taken seriously. Be inspired by TRAID’s mantra to put secondhandfirst. Let’s make fast fashion unacceptable.

Photo above: Fredy Da Silva, Warehouse Supervisor; Maria Chenoweth, CEO; Enedina Columbano, Commercial Director; Rose Nkore, Sorting Supervisor; Elaine Josephs, Sorter and Grader. ©Kit Oates, 2019

“We established a network of charity shops that didn’t apologise or hide the fact that the clothes were second-hand.

Instead TRAID celebrated it. We believed, and still do, that second-hand clothes are for everyone.”

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20 Years of TRAID One of the remarkable things about TRAID is that many of our staff stick with us for years. These stunning images celebrate five team members who have worked with us since the charity launched 20 years ago.

They represent one hundred years of effort to tackle and solve the negative impacts on people and planet of making, consuming and wasting clothes.

Photo Clockwise from top: Rose Nkore, Sorting Supervisor; Elaine Josephs, Sorter and Grader; Fredy Da Silva, Warehouse Supervisor; Maria Chenoweth, CEO and Enedina Columbano, Commercial Director. Photos: ©Kit Oates, 2019 Styled by Marta Krolewicz

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Fashion helps shape our identities. What we wear signifies who we are and what we stand for. But there’s a bigger story to be told about the conditions in which our clothes are made, the resources that have been used and the impact they’ve had on communities.

Emma Watson, actor and activist

The way we design, make and discard clothes has a huge impact on the environment. TRAID’s 23% campaign calls on Londoners to put 123 million items of unworn clothes back into use. Initiatives like this one help everyone recycle their clothes – and to understand why it matters – as well as supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goal Number 12.

Mary Creagh, MP for Wakefiled and Chair of Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee

Let’s Fix Fashion Now

By Mary Creagh, MP for Wakefield and Chair of Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee

Fashion is costing us the earth. The “pick, click, wear and bin” culture, encouraged by the fast fashion industry, has us buying more clothes, wearing them fewer times and valuing them much less - all at cost to the environment.

Globally, the fashion industry produces more carbon emissions than international flights and shipping combined. Dyes and bleaches cause chemical pollution, every wash hundreds of thousands of plastic microfibres flood into our rivers and seas, and the cotton in just one pair of jeans uses more water than a person drinks in 2 years.

In the UK we buy more clothes per person than anywhere else in Europe. Our appetite for fast fashion comes with a huge social and environmental price tag. We send a million tonnes of clothes to landfill, incineration or abroad as waste every year.

Online retailers sell dresses for a fiver, less than the hourly minimum wage, meaning poverty pay and unacceptable working conditions are too often the norm.

Left unchecked this industry will consume as much as a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050 and yet our Government has done little to tackle it.

In our Environmental Audit Committee report

published in February this year, we called on the Government to end the era of throwaway fashion.

Fashion producers should be responsible for their waste through a one penny per garment charge which could raise £35 million a year to invest in clothing recycling.

The voluntary approach has failed. We recommended that the largest retailers be mandated to sign up to an action plan to reduce their carbon, water and waste footprint. Setting these targets, alongside publishing a mandatory statement on modern slavery in their annual report, should be seen as a ‘licence to practice’.

Astoundingly, the Government rejected all 18 recommendations from our report. They proved they are not listening and appear increasingly out of step with the public mood. Charities, NGOs, the public and now many retailers can see that clothing must become fair and sustainable, and recognise the industry must change.

But what can be done about it?

Consumers have the ability to vote with their pocket. Buying less, supporting sustainable businesses, wearing longer and mending more are all actions that individuals can take. Passing on your

unused garments to charities like TRAID, supporting their 23% campaign, can give a second life to your unwanted clothes.

People can also make their voices heard. One source of inspiration is Fashion Revolution and their great “Who made my clothes” campaign or people can sign petitions such as this (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/265354) to have the Government look again at our recommendations.

But there are limits to what consumers can do.

Ultimately, fashion retailers must take responsibility for their products. Advertising to promote a wardrobe change every month, selling clothes at a loss, burning unsold stock, and turning a blind eye to labour injustices in textile factories are all practices that must end.

A thriving fashion industry that inspires creativity, treats workers with respect, makes the most of material re-use and puts stories, feelings and meaning back into clothes is possible. Clothes don’t need to cost the earth and when consumers, industry and the Government get behind that we can transform fashion into a power for good.

Until then, it is up to each of us to do what we can, to help fix fashion.

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258 tonnes of clothes So far, Londoners have helped to put 1m garments back into use.

A tap running non-stop for 131 years uses 412,800,000 litres, the water footprint of these clothes

Driving 5,992,665 miles in your car is equivalent to 2,451 tonnes of CO₂e, the carbon footprint of these clothes

By Andrea Speranza Head of Campaigns and Education at TRAID

Londoners Put One Million Garments Back Into Use

September 2019 marked the first anniversary of the launch of the 23% campaign.

It’s a simple initiative calling on people to put the 123 million unworn clothes in London’s wardrobes back into use.

The benefits include significant environmental savings, raising funds to support farmers to grow more organic cotton and helping Londoners to advance UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG12) to ensure more sustainable production and consumption.

A year on and we have a lot to celebrate. Londoner’s have passed on one million items of clothes to TRAID, for someone else to use. A saving of 2,451 tonnes of C02e and 412,800,000 litres of water.

In an era of climate emergency, saving vital natural resources and reducing greenhouse gases is critical.

The 23% campaign shows that there is no such thing as a small or insignificant action. Instead, doing some­thing as simple as identifying the clothes we no longer need, and passing them on, has a multiplicity of positive outcomes.

At a personal level, we stop becoming mere observers of this unprecedented ecological crisis and instead become empowered to do something constructive.

The process of making new clothes is poisoning our soils, contaminating our rivers, generating huge levels of waste and accelerating climate change.

Around 2,500 litres of water are used to produce just one cotton t-shirt and often, the cotton is grown in countries suffering from water scarcity. It’s easy to understand the benefits of passing on all those cotton T-shirts that lie unworn in your wardrobe.

At a collective level, doing good things together strengthens our sense of belonging and amplifies results. At a talk I gave about the campaign this was beautifully illustrated by someone I spoke to who had taken the action. She said, “I passed on just a couple of bags of clothes to TRAID and now you are telling me that this has helped to get to a million items – enough to stock 10 charity shops for one year!”

We are delighted that the campaign has also been highlighted in the UK Government’s first Voluntary National Review of Progress Towards the Sustainable Development Goals as one of the initiatives helping to meet SDG 12; and was presented by the UK’s International Development Secretary at the United Nations in New York last July.

We wanted to create a campaign with a simple, clear and educational call to action. We wanted a

“In an era of climate emergency, saving vital natural resources and reducing greenhouse gases is critical. The 23% campaign shows that there is no such thing as a small or insignificant action.” solution driven initiative with measurable results.

Most of all, we wanted to show how the power of the small could achieve something big.

The results speak for themselves. Thank you to all the Londoners who have taken the 23% campaign action. Let’s continue fashioning more from less.

Find out more and take the action: www.traid.org.uk/23percent

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From Individuals to Brands Photo: ©Image courtesy of Thought

The UN Sustainable Development Goals depend on every part of society doing their bit to achieve peace and prosperity for all by 2030, from indiv­ iduals, to businesses, to governments. TRAID’s 23% campaign calls on retailers and brands to use their substantial influence and platforms to communicate this message to their customers.

Here’s a look at some of the brands supporting the 23% campaign helping to put one million garments back into use in just one year.

Anthropologie Anthropologie is excited to support the 23% campaign. We created an exclusive vintage pop up with TRAID in our King’s Road gallery and have donation banks installed in six of our stores. Creativity is at the heart of Anthropologie so working with and supporting TRAID in its work to keep clothes in use is a natural fit.

Beaumont Organic We have been inviting our London customers to take TRAID’s 23% campaign action when they are clearing out their clothes. We love the idea that when these clothes are resold they will raise funds to support garment workers and their families across the world. As a brand we design consciously and produce ethically especially in our use of organic cotton and sustainable fabrics. As consumers we need to buy wisely and think about the true cost of our purchases.

Birdsong At Birdsong, we create clothing for women who dress in protest. We work with expert women makers who face barriers to employment – from artists and printmakers to seamstresses and painters – and pay them the London Living Wage to bring our designs to life. Wearing our collection is a protest in itself against the obsessive pursuit of trends and the systematic abuse of women in the production line. We know that people want more from their wardrobes and that’s why our partnership with TRAID and the 23% campaign is so important to us.

Hiut Hiut is proud to support TRAID’s 23% Campaign as it is drawing attention to the issues that are created by fast fashion and offering a realistic solution to combat it. The campaign highlights something that we believe at Hiut Denim, the idea that it is possible to ‘fashion more with less’. We are working towards

a more sustainable fashion future by ensuring that wherever we can, we leave minimal amounts of waste. We do not contribute to the tonnes of wasted clothing fabric that is produced in the UK by offering a free repair for life service on our jeans so they last for as long as possible. For the future, we are working with sustainable mills and looking into a variety of sustainable fabric sources.

Hurr Collective We partnered with TRAID with the aim to inspire, persuade and encourage Londoners to put their unworn clothes back into circulation. We launched HURR as the UK’s first peer-to-peer wardrobe rental platform to make it easy for women to share clothes securely and quickly. Our users can donate any items of clothing that aren’t quite suitable for our platform which means they are making environmental savings and helping to pave the way towards a more sustainable future for fashion.

Monkee Genes We are so proud to partner with TRAID on its 23% campaign. We hope that it encourages our customers to think about the impact their wardrobe has on the world and inspire them to make a change. Many of our followers have been inspired by the campaign so far, delving into their wardrobe with the aim of bringing new life to forgotten favourites collecting

dust. At Monkee Genes we are taking the initial steps to design and produce sustainably, while encouraging our customers to consume and recycle responsibly. There is a new generation coming through that are passionate about the planet and are more educated than ever before about what needs to be done to save it. Consumers and brands have the power to change the industry, meet the Global Goals and make a difference.

Thought We are a huge fan of everything TRAID is doing and love the 23% Campaign as it raises awareness of how so much of our wardrobes are unnecessary purchases. Thought is working to make the fashion industry more sustainable. We ensure our materials are sourced as cleanly as possible and that all outsourced labour meets ethical standards.

Supporting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a no brainer and we believe that so many of the SDGs can be positively affected by changes within the fashion industry, from Climate Action, to No Poverty to Gender Equality.

Find out how your brand can support the 23% campaign: www.traid.org.uk/23percent

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Fashion and the SDGS: What Role for the UN? The fashion industry has an often-underestimated impact on the development of our planet.

This $2.5 trillion-dollar industry is the second highest user of water worldwide. 10% of global carbon emissions are emitted by the apparel industry and cotton farming is responsible for 24% of insecticides and 11% of pesticides despite using only 3% of the world’s arable land.

As far as waste is concerned, 85% of textiles are sent to landfill, around 25 billion tonnes a year. The fashion industry is also closely linked to labour, gender and poverty issues. 1 in 6 people in the world works in a fashion related job, and 80% of the industry’s labour force are women.

The impact of the fashion industry is likely to increase even further in the future. If consumption continues at its current rate, there will be three times as many natural resources needed by 2050 compared to what was used in 2000.

It’s clear that the development of the fashion industry has a significant impact on the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In particular, SDG 12 commits to ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns and is structured over eight targets addressing the use of natural resources, chemical waste, fossil fuels and the integration of sustainable practices into production cycles – all of which apply to the fashion industry.

Many environmental targets under the SDGs are

directly affected by the fashion industry. Target six on waste management under SDG 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities looks at the importance of recycling of clothing.

SDG 6 relates to water pollution, the release of hazardous chemicals and materials and wateruse efficiency. SDG 13 stresses the need to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. With textile production generating 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon emissions globally every year, the fashion industry is key to addressing this.

SDG 14 relates to marine pollution including microfibres and microplastics released into the oceans from washing clothes. Furthermore, cotton production across the globe severely degrades soil quality and target three of SDG15 calls for the restoration of degraded land and soil.

The social dimension of the fashion industry is directly linked to SDG 5 on gender equality, and SDG 1 on eradicating poverty is influenced by the salaries paid to millions of people working in the apparel industry.

Improving the working conditions of ‘fashion workers’ is an important starting point for the achievement of SDG 8 – to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

It is not only producers who can make a difference. Target eight under this goal – to ensure by

By Paola Deda, Chief of Section at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

2020 that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature – addresses the consumer’s right to be better aware of sustainable development issues – an area almost untouched by the fashion industry.

In short, most of the SDGs are directly linked to the fashion industry.

In the UN system, several organisations have addressed certain aspects of the fashion industry including the International Trade Centre, the International Labor Organisation and the UN Global Compact.

However, despite various efforts, so far, the UN has not taken a comprehensive approach to address all aspects of a sustainable fashion industry. This is surprising given the importance of this industry in reaching the SDGs as outlined here.

We will provide a visible and meaningful con­ tribution to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by working to reach a comprehensive, coherent and coordinated approach towards the development of a sustainable fashion industry.

Learn more about the UN SDGs: www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment

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What We’re Reading

By Lucy Siegle

This month we’ve been reading ‘Turning the Tide on Plastic’ by Lucy Siegle - an accessible, practical and inspiring book that not only serves as a much needed call to arms to end the plastic pandemic, but also gives useful tools on how to make meaningful change in our everyday lives and how to demand long-lasting action.

I wrote this book because without big action, at the current rate, pieces of plastic will outnumber fish in the ocean by 2050. That is the legacy we are leaving our children and grandchildren.

Today, enough plastic is thrown away every year to circle the world 4 times, more than 8 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans each year, while an estimated 15-51 trillion pieces of plastic now litter the world’s oceans.

Plastic flows into our lives from every direction and most of it is not recycled. Instead it is incinerated or ends up in landfill, where it will sit for hundreds of years.

The fashion industry is a massive part of the plastic problem. Billions of tiny fragments of ‘microplastics’ enter the world’s seas when we wash clothes made from synthetic fibres - the environmental scourge of our times.

Many of us had assumed that governments, brands and waste authorities were dealing with plastic on our behalf. But the impact of shows such as Blue Planet along with national beach cleans and highprofile campaigns have resulted in a collective wake-up call. If there were plans and strategies, they have not worked as we imagined. It would be easy to feel despondent but instead we need to turn our anger and emotion into action. We can start by making a big dent in our own enormous consumption.

When it comes to single-use plastics for example, we are habitual users, reaching out for plastic water bottles, disposable coffee cups, plastic straws and carrier bags multiple times a day. If only 12 of us adopt my ‘reduce, rethink, refill, refuse’ approach, we could potentially ditch 3K-15K single items of plastic in a year.

Take action and demand the change you want to see in the ocean, in the supermarket aisles and on the streets. It’s time to turn the tide on plastic, and this book will show you how.

Lucy Siegle is a journalist, broadcaster and eco expert with a decade of experience as the Observer and Guardian’s Ethical Living columnist. Her latest book Turning the Tide on Plastic. How Humanity (And You) Can Make Our Globe Clean Again is published by Trapeze.

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Seeds of Change TRAID has supported OBEPAB’s work to increase cotton production in Benin, West Africa, since 2009.

We spoke with Delphine Bodjrenou who has been central to increasing the participation of women farmers in the project.

How did you get involved with OBEPAB? It was a ‘shot of fate’. I did some translations for OBEPAB and when I was working on those, I was invited to participate in some of their activities with farmers. The farmers were being educated about the dangers of synthetic pesticides and shown alternative ways of farming. This awakened in me a desire to protect smallholders against the problems caused by pesticides. It’s not just a matter for agronomists.

My grandparents are farmers, so it affects them and everyone else, animals and the environment. That’s how I started to work with OBEPAB and I’ve been spreading their message for 21 years! I intervene in many activities but particularly gender, and the standards and certification aspects of organic farming.

How has OBEPAB’s programme and your role changed during this period?

When OBEPAB started in 1994-95 women involved in organic cotton did so under the guise of their

husband or male relatives. They were invisible and their role was mainly limited to sowing and harvesting. All their other work was hidden.

OBEPAB’s work has changed this. Concrete actions to boost women’s membership include giving the payment for the cotton bought directly to the farmer, whether a woman or a man, with the money put in a named envelope. This motivated women to take an interest in organic cotton because it meant that the money earned would be handed to them directly and not to their husband or father. This meant the decisions on how to spend the money were also in their hands. Women also have direct access to inputs (eg. seeds). It’s not like this in conventional farming where everything goes through men. In addition, the programme has evolved thanks to the different training given to farmers in general, and women farmers in particular. This type of training has allowed women to better understand the organic cotton production process, developing their self-confidence as a result, and to gradually take their place at the heart of their community. I’m very much involved in these training activities, identifying what will help women to develop to their full potential, being with women on a daily basis to try and boost their confidence, and, importantly, trying to find different sources of income for women so they’re not reliant on cotton alone.

production under their name. Part of the reason for this would certainly be because the director, Davo, had the necessary vision to put the same person, that is me [!], in charge of gender and the Internal Control System.

OBEPAB has a higher than normal proportion of women farmers compared to other organic cotton programmes and, of course, compared to the conventional sector, why do you think this is?

OBEPAB works very hard to get women involved in organic cotton production. We know that organic cotton production has proved to be an opportunity for women. In fact, organic farming allows women to do something on an equal footing as men and to have their own income. The way the Internal Control System is set up by OBEPAB enables women to be ‘visible actors’ in the chain and to sell their annual

Learn more about the project: www.traid.org.uk/traid-projects

Why do women not participate at the same level as men in the agricultural sector?

Women have many roles and therefore have very little time. This means that they are less likely to have opportunities to do training. They also lack access to critical information. There are also social constraints, many ethnic groups see a woman as a possession of her husband and she must therefore take a back seat, especially where land ownership is concerned.

Can you give some examples of strategies that you use to increase women’s participation?

To increase women’s participation we use many dynamic strategies. Some examples include encouraging women to take the floor to express their views, making sure that everyone has an equal chance to speak and run women only training sessions. We also provide a lot of support for women to develop their incomes through crop diversification, manufacturing organic shea butter and supporting off-season production.

Photo above: Delphine Bodjrenou (left) with organic cotton farmers in Benin. ©Image courtesy of OBEPAB

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Photo right: Massive algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico is largely caused by fertiliser run-off, mostly in the form of nitrogen and phosphorus, as the Mississippi river drains into Gulf waters creating an ever-growing dead zone which deprives marine life of the oxygen they need to survive. ©NASA/Landsat/ Phil Degginger

TRAID’s Organic Cotton Funding is Mitigating Climate Change

By Angela Russ, Head of International Programmes at TRAID

This sounds like a bit of a stretch, but it’s true, albeit in a small way.

Growing organic doesn’t just mean avoiding pesticides, it means avoiding synthetic fertilisers too. And this is incredibly important. Here’s why.

We know that excess levels of carbon dioxide are primarily responsible for climate change. However, a lesser known gas which also contributes to the greenhouse effect is nitrous oxide (N20). It makes up an extremely small amount of the atmosphere compared to carbon dioxide, but it traps 200 to 300 times the amount of heat and stays in the atmosphere for up to 150 years.

Like other greenhouse gases, the amount of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere is increasing and since 1750, levels have risen by 20 percent.

Why? The main contributor to the increasing levels of nitrous oxide is believed to be synthetic nitrogen fertilisers.

with 3,681 now certified. A further 3,200 are currently being trained.

By the end of 2021, 9,700 farmers should be certified organic or very close to it. At present, the only organic cotton farmers in Ethiopia are those supported by TRAID, and 83.5% of the organic cotton produced in Benin is grown by TRAIDsupported farmers.

This means that TRAID is currently supporting around 2% (when in-conversion cotton is included) of the overall production of organic lint cotton using the Textile Exchange’s 2017 global production figure of 117,525 metric tonnes.

Countries in Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia are already suffering disproportionately from the effects of climate change. If TRAID can play any part in slowing it down and at the same time support farmers to be healthier and to have a better income, then it seems to be a win-win situation.

In November, I met an organic cotton farmer from Texas. He has been farming organically for 26 years.

His farm is huge at 2500 acres, that’s as big as the combined land of 1000 of the Ethiopian farmers we support. He has no particular ideological stance on organic, he simply says, ‘why farm conventionally when you can do the same thing organically making your family and farm employees safer?’.

Fertilisers are used by farmers to supply soils with nutrients essential to the growth of plants. They can be naturally produced like compost, derived from vegetable matter, blood meal or seaweed for example, or synthetically produced usually as a by-product of the petroleum industry.

When nitrogen fertiliser is applied faster than plants can use it soil bacteria convert it to nitrate. Some is water soluble and is washed out of soils where it pollutes groundwater, streams, estuaries and coastal oceans. The rest is released as nitrous oxide.

And it’s not just what organic farming avoids that makes it an antidote to climate change. Farming organically helps the soil to carry out its function as a ‘carbon sink’ - a natural environment able to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Organically farmed soil is better at storing carbon because it contains more humic substances.

These are the organic compounds which bind to soil to make it more fertile and better at retaining water.

It also captures carbon from the air and stores it long-term. By contrast, non-organic farming obliterates these organic compounds due to mono cropping and high use of chemical inputs. Soils store a massive one-third of the carbon in the world, so efforts to keep that carbon locked away could help slow the pace of climate change.

How TRAID funding is helping In 2009, TRAID started funding the production of organic cotton. There are many farmers in the world who do not want to use synthetic pesticides or fertilisers but don’t know how to farm in any other way.

At one time, everyone farmed organically, but as farmers have come to rely on synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, this knowledge has been quickly lost from one generation to the next.

TRAID funds several organisations with highly technical know-how to guide farmers through the three-year conversion period it takes to become accredited to grow organically.

The agricultural advice given to their farmers is of such high quality that many have started producing higher yields of cotton, and the crops they grow alongside them, than their neighbours who farm conventionally. This has meant a steady flow of farmers wanting to join the programme.

In the past ten years, 6,500 farmers in Benin and Ethiopia have been supported with TRAID funding to convert from conventional to organic farming,

Further reading and resources https://theconversation.com/uk/environment https://www.pan-uk.org/ https://www.wri.org/ http://www.fao.org Includes a database which tracks world fertilizer trends and outlooks

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Did You Know?

• Making synthetic nitrogen demands an incredible amount of energy. It also requires hydrogen which relies on harmful fossil fuel extraction.

• Its manufacture accounts for around 50% of the total energy use in commercial agriculture, and agriculture contributed around 13% of total global emissions in 2011.

• Nitrogen fertilisers pollute waterways and cause oxygen-depleted “dead zones” around the world.

For example, the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is increasing and measured nearly 9,000 miles in 2017, the size of New Jersey • According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) demand for synthetic nitrogen fertiliser in 2018 was 115,376,000 tonnes, a 949% increase compared to 1961 when the FAO Pesticides Trade Database began. Synthetic nitrogen destroys the soils natural capacity to store carbon and nitrogen, so farmers need more and more synthetic nitrogen fertiliser to maintain the same levels of soil fertility.

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17 Photo left: Mateus, organic cotton farmer and Treasurer of the Shelle Mella Organic Cotton Cooperative. ©Leigh McAlea, 2018

Photo below, left: Wudinesh Koricho, organic cotton farmer and member of the Shelle Mella Organic Cotton Cooperative hand spinning cotton. ©Leigh McAlea, 2018

Photo below, right: PAN Ethiopia staff Bazezew (left) and Shamber run Farmer Field Schools teaching natural crop management techniques. ©Leigh McAlea, 2018

Photo bottom, right: Holding organic cotton. ©Leigh McAlea, 2018

Ethiopia’s Organic Cotton Heroes

By Leigh McAlea, Head of Communications at TRAID

Meet some of the farmers who have become the first ever in Ethiopia to gain organic certification for cotton. The next phase of this TRAID funded project aims for thousands more Ethiopian farmers already growing pesticide-free cotton to become accredited.

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UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.8.

By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.

An Education Toolkit for a Sustainable Future

By Andrea Speranza, Head of Campaigns and Education at TRAID

In this era of climate emergency, it is obvious that we must find another way to live. The transition towards a different society – a sustainable society – demands an education of a different kind.

Education for sustainability in the context of TRAID work is about providing learners with the knowledge, skills and values needed to shape a sustainable society where everyone can prosper.

It requires participatory teaching and methods that empower learners to change their behaviour.

It demands critical thinking to encourage ways of living which protect the Earth’s ecosystems. It is an education that prioritises our quality of life over ‘high’ standards of living which are often at the expense of our living planet and the denial of vital needs to millions of people around the world.

Such an education is needed now more than ever, not only because of the scale of the ecological crisis, but also because of the global commitment to reaching the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

SDG 12 calls for more sustainable production and consumption, and a crucial target of this Goal is to ‘ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information they need to build lifestyles in harmony with nature’.

At TRAID we are contributing to this target by producing a new educational toolkit designed to help educators across the UK and beyond deliver education for sustainability that raises awareness of the impacts of clothes on people and planet, and what we can do about it.

As a charity working to tackle the socio-environmental costs of fast fashion for the past two decades, we understand the true value of clothes.

They are not only a basic need. They also have the power to make us feel comfortable or more confident, to express our individuality and creativity, to strengthen our sense of belonging or cultural identity.

However, clothes are also becoming a serious problem. As a society, we are buying too much and wearing them too little. Globally, the fashion industry

“Understanding what is wrong with how we produce, consume and waste clothes is a concrete way of introducing participatory teaching about the impacts of living unsustainably and what changes we can make. It poses the question enshrined in SDG12 – how can we do more with less?”

is a significant generator of greenhouses gases and responsible for a massive 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon emissions annually. Nationally, the UK is a significant contributor to the problem and consumes more clothes per person than any other country in Europe but uses them for the shortest time.

Understanding what is wrong with how we produce, consume and waste clothes is a concrete way of introducing participatory teaching about the impacts of living unsustainably and what changes we can make. It poses the question enshrined in SDG12 – how can we do more with less?

Awareness of the negative impacts of fast fashion and textile waste has increased significantly in the last decade but so has the magnitude of the environmental crisis. In 2018, UN climate scientists stated that ‘urgent and unprecedented changes are needed,’ and this year the UK Parliament declared a ‘climate emergency’ for the first time in its history.

Galvanising the educational community to lead this process of rethinking our priorities as a society to empower young people to be agents of change is imperative.

If you work with schools, lead grassroots projects, or you are a community leader, we would love to share this new toolkit with you. Email education@ traid.org.uk

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What Does the Future Hold for Environmental Education?

TRAID Education sat down with Dr Melissa Glackin, Senior Lecturer in Science Education at King’s College London to discuss the current state of environmental education and what the future holds.

priority or part of everyday school life. I do think things are going to change, but we did find that schools were prioritising ‘competitive students for the workplace’ rather than those that were environmentally minded.

We have got to work with multiple stake holders, so that’s including the parents, government, teachers and policy makers to make space for it in the curriculum.

Photo: Dr Melissa Glackin, Senior Lecturer in Science Education at King’s College London. ©Image courtesy of Melissa Glackin

TRAID: How do you define environmental education?

MG: In our report we state the definition upfront and build on Arthur Lucus’ definition. He defines it as education about the environment, for the environment and in the environment. So it is more than just going outside. And it’s more than learning about climate change. It’s really broad.

TRAID: How do you see environmental education being embedded into the curriculum?

MG: It can’t be siloed, that’s the problem with it. It’s not geography, it’s not economics and it’s not mathsit’s all encompassing. We still have this traditional set up in our schools with easy to define subjects which educators can move around, in that way environmental education is falling through the gaps.

Environmental education is also not being effectively assessed. And currently in our schools what is assessed matters. It therefore has to be embedded across the curriculum, but there is no one easy way.

Multiple folk have to be involved in that. It’s complex.

TRAID: How receptive would you say educators are to making space for environmental education in the curriculum?

MG: It’s important to say that it isn’t just the teachers, it can’t be - teachers burn out, and it isn’t just the curriculum. What our research shows is that you get keen teachers whose initiatives are often side-lined for other, considered more current, initiatives.

For example, what we are also not seeing when we analyse school aims and values, including their mission statement, is environmental education as a

TRAID: What do you think the long-term effects of environmental education are?

MG: The effects of environmental education are very particular to the individual’s belief, the context that they are living in, the context of their family home, their interests that they have or their disposition. For example, you and I may have experienced the same environmental education, but from where we are coming from and what our interests are we will take differently from it.

The longer-term benefits are also about connection to the environment. If we build that in our young people, whatever that looks like and however that plays out, it’s something more than just the knowledge they have. Because I think having a connection to the environment enables you to be curious because you actually know something about a subject to be curious about. And it does actually invite people to build upon these skills when they are older.

TRAID: What are the most effective techniques to change and challenge unsustainable behaviours and lifestyles?

MG: As an educator, and this is where I feel the real weight upon us, I think it is being the example. And that includes not taking it too seriously as you would never get out of bed in the morning!

Students pick up immediately when we are not practicing what we preach. For organisations such as your own you can imagine how that might play out.

And similarly, I feel quite a responsibility related to this myself. I mean at the moment I am in Japan and obviously I didn’t walk here. So, the role of education is just more than what we teach – it is how this is also embodied.

TRAID: With the climate crisis becoming ever more present I would say we need change fast. But can the current education system keep up? What are your thoughts on that?

MG: Curriculum change can take time, but it can also be quite radical and quick. We saw that in 2014 with changes coming through in our curriculums in England. However, many of these were negative changes, but we know that changes can take place really fast if they are pushed through politically.

However, it’s a balance, as radical changes put through in a year or two put pressure on the profession. It’s about organisation and working collectively, for example with the Department for Education and Ofsted.

Ofsted have just been looking at renewing their inspection framework and making some changes.

They are quite powerful in a sense, because that would enable more of a change in school ethos.

This could then mean that it could be pulled across the curriculum.

TRAID: Do you see options for cross over between current movements such as the youth climate strikes and environmental education?

MG: Yes, I think we have got a real interest there.

And real appetite. We found that in our report that teachers say that kids find the subject interesting.

Teachers have squeezed it into plenaries (teacher led classroom discussion) because it is actually not nearly substantially found in the curriculum at the moment. But they know that there is an appetite for it. Children are seeing the effects and are keen to know what’s happening. I do think we are on a path for change which can only lead to a good thing.

TRAID: Do you feel that there is enough information for young people out there to understand environmental issues and how to get involved?

MG: I think that is the key frustration and that is a real big role for schools. They have a lot of knowledge, and access to information, but students are feeling frustrated as they don’t know what they can actually do. For example, knowing what organisation to join and what they can actually do in those organisations to be able to feel that they are coming up with solutions.

The education system has to respond to those needs rather the needs of the economy and jobs which has driven our education system for the past 150 years.

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20 Years of Creating Sustainable Wardrobes I’m originally from Sardinia, and one of the unique and wonderful things about the UK is its tradition of charity shops - according to the Charity Retail Association there are around 11,000. Go to any high street and it’s likely you’ll be able to buy an item previously used by someone else.

After 20 years working in charity retail at TRAID – first as a shop assistant, then a manager and now as Commerical Director – it is clear to me that our charity shops are much more than the sum of their parts.

They are not only a way to raise funds for a cause.

They also play a vital role to drive more reuse by making second-hand appealing and desirable for our customers both as consumers who want to look good and pick up a bargain, and as citizens who want to minimise the impact their clothes have on people and planet.

TRAID has always put secondhandfirst. When the charity began, our challenge was to overcome some of the barriers to buying and wearing second-hand clothes. We did this by making second-hand attractive with well designed creative charity shops, and stock tailored specifically for the communities where our shops are located.

Our managers and sorting team work together to try to give the customer exactly what they want. In doing so, TRAID I think has really succeeded in one of its constant goals to provide a genuine alternative to buying new on the high street.

Crucially, we also refused to disguise the fact that charity shops sell second-hand clothes – in fact we revelled in it. There is nothing ‘preowned’ or ‘preloved’ at TRAID. We are second-hand through and through.

This attitude has attracted a brilliant diverse retail team who love the fun and creativity inherent in second-hand fashion. In turn, this also attracts brilliant and diverse customers who are fed-up with the banality of high street brands and fleeting trends.

Increasingly, the fashion industry is understood as a major cause of serious environmental and social problems, including accelerating climate catastrophe. TRAID has long been addressing these issues in our work to reuse, educate and fund projects improving working and production practices in the fashion industry.

Our shops are also communication platforms that we use to inform our customers about the true costs of fashion. We remind them that much of our

Francesco Colucci Styles the Windows of TRAID From artists Gilbert & George regularly stopping by to check out the latest windows created by TRAID’s Francesco Colucci, to social media lighting up with photos of his utterly unique and weirdly wonderful windows, his shop displays embody the spirit, creativity and originality of second-hand like no other. Mark Holgate, Fashion News Editor at Vogue, was so inspired by what he saw, that he wrote this piece about him.

Francesco Colucci is an Italian living in London who creates window displays for the network of TRAID thrift stores across the British capital, using whatever has been donated to this organization that tackles clothing waste. That’s the prosaic description of what Colucci does, but it doesn’t even begin to convey the visual bravura of his work, which calls to mind the love child of Leigh Bowery and Martin Margiela.

Or the fact that those displays have become something to await whenever he unveils each and every new one. Since you’re likely not in London, you can follow him on Instagram at @franceso.colucci82 to see what he has been up to.

What makes Colucci worth following is the fierceness of the looks, their wit and verve, the daring way he’ll radically reconsider whatever is to hand: vintage evening dresses get layered one atop the other, like some fashion version of the princess and the pea; coats are spliced in half and then partnered with the very last thing you’d ever imagine; and granny’s pilled craftwork crochet blankets get used in such a way that you realize they have gone to a far, far better place than the spare bedroom.

You can’t buy what he creates, but then that’s not really the point. The crucial thing here is to not

By Enedina Columbano, Commerical Director at TRAID

clothes are grown from cotton which uses harmful pesticides, that producing clothes gobbles up massive quantities of finite resources like water as well as creating unprecedented levels of textile waste.

TRAID’s solution – second-hand - is to keep the clothes we have already produced, in use for longer.

It’s a solution that we can all be part of.

Our charity shops aren’t just about consuming lovely clothes. They are also spaces for our customers to be citizens. To make a choice to buy fewer new clothes and make the switch to second-hand.

To find out more about the powerful benefits of shrinking our fashion footprint. All while supporting our work to fund projects to create a more sustainable industry every time you shop with us or give us a bag of clothes to use.

We couldn’t do it without you. Thank you for helping us to put secondhandfirst.

Find a TRAID charity shop: www.traid.org.uk/shop-at-traid

By Mark Holgate, Fashion News Editor at Vogue

discard, but cut up, rethink, go wild. It’s a sustainable riposte to a fashion world that needs (let’s be honest) its wasteful extravagances reined in, and a call to giving in to one’s crazier impulses about how it might be fun, and original, to look. Check in with this talented (and sincere) maverick.

First published in Vogue.com, April 22nd, 2019, reprinted with permission

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Photo: Second-hand clothes and textiles take centre stage in TRAID’s charity shop windows. ŠImages courtesy of Francesco Colucci

22 Photo right: Protesting garment workers. ©Kristof Vadino

Garment Worker Safety in Bangladesh is Under Threat, Again It took just ninety seconds for the Rana Plaza factory building to collapse on 24th April 2013. The speed and ferocity of the disaster was followed by days and nights of horror as rescue workers fought to save thousands of people trapped in the rubble.

In the dust and mayhem, 1,138 garment workers were found dead.

As pieces of the concrete building were cleared, details emerged of brands linked to the catastrophically unsafe building – C&A, Benetton, Matalan, Mango, and Walmart, amongst others. Primark was found to have inspected and approved its Rana Plaza factory not once, but twice. For its part, Primark say that before Rana Plaza, structural safety was simply not part of its inspections.

In the aftermath of the collapse, campaigners and trade unionists from around the world demanded the fashion industry rethink its treatment of Bangladesh. For too long warnings of catastrophe had gone unheeded, with earlier disasters, like the Tazreen factory fire and the Spectrum factory collapse, shrugged off.

With so many dead, and with the world’s media focused on the reality of ‘Made in Bangladesh’ labels, an innovative factory inspection system was launched: The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. The Accord had ground-breaking powers – it was legally binding and independent, every brand who became a signatory had to publish details of which factories it was using and commit to ensuring they were made safe, trade unions were equal signatories, and workers were trained in safety measures and gained the right to refuse to work in unsafe factories.

In the first five years of the Accord, inspectors uncovered hundreds more death-trap buildings – factories that were structurally unsound, that had no fire-escapes, that had lethal electrical faults.

Now in its second phase, campaigners say the Accord eliminated over 90% of the safety hazards originally identified by its inspectors. As a result, 2.5 million Bangladeshi garment workers spend their days in far safer workspaces.

But the job is far from over. Many factories – including those inspected by the Accord – remain unsafe. They need more structural work, they need automated fire alarms, and every factory needs to ensure its boilers are not at risk of exploding.

Nor can this work ever be declared finished, inspections need to be repeated frequently and the results monitored. Nor indeed could the Accord tackle all the problems in Bangladesh’s garment factories – violence against workers, low pay, lack of rights for trade unions, and sexual harassment remain live issues. But in terms of preventing another Rana Plaza, the Accord has so far prevailed.

Despite this, the Accord has met resistance from the Bangladesh government, and the powerful factory owners organisation – the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), who have been angered by the Accord’s ability to stop brands working with unsafe factories.

Now progress is under serious threat. Having faced expulsion from Bangladesh, the Accord’s infrastructure and staff are due to be gradually handed over to the newly established RMG Sustainability Council (RSC) by early 2020. The RSC will eventually take full responsibility for inspections.

By Tansy Hoskins

Tansy Hoskins is a journalist and author of ‘Stitched Up – The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion’. Her new book ‘Foot Work - What Your Shoes Are Doing To The World’ will be published in March 2020.

This has led to serious questions. For a start, while the RSC’s governing board includes fashion brands and national trade unions, it is effectively run by the BGMEA. Christie Miedema, at the Clean Clothes Campaign in Amsterdam, says she is very concerned at media reports which say the BGMEA want a different focus for the RSC: “We hear a lot of mention of self-monitoring, of more limited union and civil society representation, and more focus on voluntary measures rather than strong enforcement of remediation.”

This raises the question of whether trade unions and worker representatives will be able to maintain their voice? What, if any, consequences will there be for factories who refuse to comply with repairs?

Above all, does this new phase signal a return to the rubble and blood era of fast fashion production at any cost?

Away from whirring sewing machines, the power behind the throne remains the fashion brands, giant multinational corporations whose profits sometimes exceed the GDP of entire countries and who have huge leverage over Bangladeshi factory owners.

“The brands should stand for what they signed,” Christie Miedema concludes. “The Accord as it is now, with strong safety mechanisms, worker and civil society representation, and transparency. They should not agree to any compromises.”

What can you do?

Keep an eye on social media, TRAID and the Clean Clothes Campaign will be posting updates and action plans as the situation develops.

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Photo above: Photo Electrical safety inspection. ŠImage courtesy of the Bangladesh Accord

Photo left: All-employee meeting organised by the Accord in an Accord-covered factory. ŠKristof Vadino

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Photo left: Shahida can now ensure a good education for her daughter. ©Traidcraft Exchange/ Syed Shoaib Hosen

Photo above: Shahida is working on the cutting room floor while her daughter practices her writing. ©Traidcraft Exchange/Syed Shoaib Hosen

Photo above: Putul and her son. ©Traidcraft Exchange/Syed Shoaib Hosen

PROJECT FOCUS

Turning Waste Into Opportunities Mary Milne, Head of Campaigns and Communications at Traidcraft Exchange takes a closer look at this TRAID funded project to support people in Bangladesh working with waste fabrics to create income and opportunities.

We all know that ‘fast fashion’ is a wasteful business.

We buy that great new top, wear it a couple of times and then sling it in the back of the wardrobe. But have you ever thought about the waste generated at other points in the journey from cotton seed to finished garment?

Garment factories produce tonnes of scrap fabrics each year – off cuts, end of lines, rejected items.

It’s estimated that a quarter of the fabric used each year is wasted – and is either dumped as landfill or burned, contributing to carbon emissions and climate change.

Bangladesh is well-known for producing many of the clothes we buy in Europe. Now it’s the home of an innovative new industry which is making use of waste from garment factories and using it to make clothing for the local market.

It’s known as ‘backyard garments’ and emerged in the northern Bangladeshi city of Saidpur in the late 1990’s and 2000’s. People started collecting the fabric waste discarded by big clothing factories – which they call ‘jhut’ – and used it to make clothes to sell locally.

From these small beginnings, the industry has grown and now it’s estimated that around 100,000 people make a living through ‘backyard garments’.

The clothes are sold on the domestic market and exported to neighbouring countries such as India and Nepal. Most of the businesses employ just a

few workers and operate from tiny industrial units or people’s homes.

As well as being an innovative way to reduce stress on the environment by reusing discarded fabric, this new local industry brings opportunities, especially for women, who make up the majority of workers.

Putul has been working in the industry for more than 12 years. She earns the equivalent of around £5 per day which makes a huge difference to the family. She said, ‘Working is always good. It pays our bills. I can ensure a good education for my children.

Good healthcare and good food is now easier for us to get. I do not want my children to face the sufferings that I had to experience. They are my biggest motivation.’ As the longest serving worker at her factory, the other women there look up to her as their mentor. ‘My husband tries his best to support us. … Together we can make a decent living and help out our parents if necessary.’

For people like Putul, the industry is offering opportunities to acquire skills, earn a decent income and feel a sense of self-worth and achievement.

There is huge potential for growth, with abundant waste textiles, plenty of skilled workers and a ready market among low and middle-income consumers in Bangladesh and neighbouring countries. In fact, if the industry can be shown to work, the model could be extended to other countries.

By Mary Milne, Head of Campaigns and Communications at Traidcraft Exchange

Despite its poor record on health and safety, the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh has brought jobs, especially for women. And that means young women can have some economic independence and freedom from the traditional male-dominated society. But these jobs are concentrated in the cities, so young women have to leave their homes. Because of its small scale, ‘backyard garments’ could extend these opportunities to people living in rural areas.

In an innovative new project, TRAID is funding fellow-UK charity Traidcraft Exchange to help develop this industry. Traidcraft Exchange are specialists in making trade and business work for people living in poverty. They’ll be using their expertise to carry out in-depth research on the industry and offer hands-on training to local businesses.

It’s a two-year project to create a detailed analysis of the backyard garments industry and its impact on poverty and the environment. It will look at potential new markets – including in north India – and the growth potential of the sector.

25-year-old Shahida Akther is another woman who has found opportunities and financial security through the industry. She grew up in poverty as one of six children of a Saidpur rickshaw-puller and returned to her parents’ home after escaping an abusive marriage.

Her job at a small garment factory has given her hope. ‘My daughter now goes to school with a full stomach,’ she said, ‘Not only am I able to take care of my child, but my parents and a sibling live with me also. … All I want is for my parents to be happy and healthy and my daughter to have a good future and education. I will do everything in my power as long as I can ensure all these.’

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PROJECT FOCUS

Is Child Labour Out of Fashion? Meet Arshi’s Family and Find Out Nina Smith, CEO at GoodWeave International provides a first-hand account of a TRAID funded project showing how collaboration and transparency in the fashion industry can stop child labour.

Photo right: Arshi’s parents Jousef and Parveen embellishing a jacket with sequins. ©Image courtesy of GoodWeave

Photo below left: Arshi on her way to school. ©Image courtesy of GoodWeave

By Nina Smith, CEO at GoodWeave International

The hidden supply chain This March I met 12-year-old Arshi in front of her small house where her parents, Jousef and Parveen were stitching silver sequins inside the outline of a star covering the back of a jacket destined for a European retailer.

Embellishment work is Jousef and Parveen’s only source of income. They know they are poor, as they have always been. But they have no idea how underpaid they are in relation to factory workers – or that their skills add significant value to goods being sold halfway around the world.

This is the hidden, bottom of the supply chain.

The village near Sikandrabad where Arshi and her family live is part of a 200-kilometer stretch encompassing some 500 slums and villages from Delhi NCR to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

The tens of thousands of home-based workers that have specialised embroidery and embellishment skills who live there are regularly tapped to produce goods for the global market. Yes, they work in obscurity and are poverty-stricken. Their children work with them, rather than attend school.

The journey of the sequined star jacket The brand that will eventually sell the jacket adorned

by Arshi’s family likely knows very little detail of the multi-tiered, complex production network of sites involved in the making of its order. Its relationship is with one supplier factory and that is where it will apply checks for child labour and other labour rights.

Talking with Arshi’s family I learned that the Western buyer placed its order with its “tier one” supplier in Jaipur, Rajasthan, some 360 kilometers away from where we stood. Then the jacket took a trip: first the Jaipur-based subcontractor placed the order for embellishment across state borders to smaller factories and “dedicated centers” (DCs) in Sikandrabad. One of those DCs sub-contracted a portion of its order to Jousef, who lives 10 kilometers away. Jousef stitched a portion of the order and sub-contracted the rest to 20 women homebased workers in his village. And finally, the same chain reversed to get the embellished fabric back to Jaipur for tailoring and finishing.

The DCs were paid 600 rupees, or $8 per jacket.

But the home-based workers who completed the majority of production earned 250 to 300 rupees per jacket, around $4.

Documenting this journey is important because it is here, outside factory walls, in the hidden parts

Photo below left: Arshi was behind in her learning when she was first enrolled in school but is now winning prizes. ©Image courtesy of GoodWeave

of the supply chain, that most child labour and other economic exploitation happens.

A market-based solution ensures schooling – and not work – for Arshi The good news is that the fashion industry is starting to wake up to this reality. Just three years ago, Arshi worked alongside her parents. Neither she nor her brother or sister attended school. This changed because an international brand joined GoodWeave, requiring their suppliers to allow full supply chain mapping to home-based worker communities.

Once in a community, GoodWeave ensures all child labour cases within and beyond that single brand’s production is remediated, and that every child is supported to both enrol in school and improve learning outcomes. We do this work through our carefully implemented, high-impact Child Friendly Community program that ultimately led us to Arshi’s front door.

Now, supplier factories to that brand disclose their subcontracting, and every production site must cooperate with random, unannounced inspections.

All workers become a recognized part of a re-defined supply chain, and children like Arshi are protected from labour and now have access to education.

This is supply chain transparency. No, this is more than supply chain transparency. This is what’s possible when brands are willing to partner with community-based organizations like GoodWeave to work deep in supply chains to tackle the underlying conditions of child labour.

There is no place for children in a modern supply chain The day I met Arshi, she took me to visit her classroom. Her teachers described her as a serious student. Since GoodWeave began a Child Friendly Community in her village, vast improvements have been made to the school’s curriculum, teaching capacity, and infrastructure. Our community-based facilitators work with families to overcome obstacles to allowing their children to attend school. Child labour has dropped while school enrolment has more than doubled.

GoodWeave has sparked similar transformations in four other nearby, home-based apparel worker communities, all offering ready, child-labour-free, value-add skills to the fashion industry. We are changing societal norms and perceptions to value education – especially for girls.

But let’s face facts: other kids like Arshi continue to toil in supply chains. According to a recent study from the University of California, Berkeley, child labour taints nearly 20% of home-based garment production in India, with the majority destined for export markets. The problem is systemic; no brand is free from it, but any brand has the power to help change it.

By working in earnest to achieve full supply chain transparency and making urgently needed improvements for all workers and children -instead of “de-risking” company-specific supply chains- we can eradicate child labour from the apparel industry.

Permanently.

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AMMA. Making Textiles Naturally AMMA (Tamil for mother) is a young social enterprise using food waste and plants to produce handwoven fabrics and homeware.

Based in rural Sri Lanka, the project trains and employs mothers and young women living on local tea plantations. Rather than bleaching and chemically dyeing textiles, one of the most

PROJECT FOCUS

environmentally harmful stages of production in the fashion industry, AMMA use natural dyes like turmeric and avocado skin to make its beautiful sustainable products.

Learn more here ammasrilanka.com

My hopes for AMMA are that we can provide jobs for many more women in this area. I believe that natural dyes have an important role to play in replacing hazardous synthetic dyes, whilst also helping to restore the land in this area through cultivation.”

Josie George, AMMA founder

Photos: Creating beautiful naturally dyed textiles. ©Images courtesy of AMMA

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How to Donate the Right Things to TRAID

By Leigh McAlea, Head of Communications at TRAID

If this issue of Behind the Seams has inspired you to liberate your unworn clothes from the confines of your wardrobe and put them back into use, then we’ve succeeded.

But what’s the next step? Something we get asked all the time is what condition should donations be in?

It’s an important question.

At TRAID’s warehouse where we sort hundreds of thousands of garments every year, we are privvy to the unvarnished truth of consumption. The explosion of online fast fashion brands, barely worn clothes and those still with the price tag attached and of course, clothes which are falling apart after a few washes.

Becoming more responsible about the clothes we buy, also extends to being responsible for the clothes you no longer want, wear or need.

Some organisations and most local authority recycling centres accept textile donations in any condition because they recycle and shred damaged and unsuitable textiles.

20 Years of TRAID’s Charity Shops

By Wayne Hemingway, Co-founder, HemingwayDesign

Photo right: Passing on clothes to TRAID boosts reuse, makes significant water and carbon savings and raises funds for projects improving conditions across the fashion industry. ©Kit Oates, 2017

At TRAID we are primarily focussed on reuse rather than recycling. We want donations – whether clothes, accessories, paired shoes, linen or homeware – which are in good enough condition to be resold in our stores. But what is ‘good enough’?

Donation no no’s include stained items, fabrics smelling strongly of anything unpleasant like smoke or damp, moth eaten items, single shoes and garments with rips, holes or worn out patches. A good rule of thumb regarding stains is that if it didn’t wash out for you, it won’t for anyone else.

Shrunken jumpers, shapeless or bobbly clothes, and broken zips, straps, buckles or handles usually won’t make the grade.

However, spend a day with TRAID’s expert sorting team and you’ll quickly learn there are no hard or fast rules. For example, they may select slightly damaged items if it’s an easy fix for the customer like a missing button or a removable mark. This is most common when it’s an expensive brand or a special vintage piece.

We also get asked if TRAID washes the clothes donated to us. Other than a handful of very expensive or special items that need a wash to be sellable, the answer is a resounding no. One of the biggest environmental impacts over the lifetime of a garment

is the water and energy consumed when we care for them. Many people wash clothes before they donate them to us, and most customers will wash an item again when they buy it. TRAID chooses not to add to that environmental burden.

Another common question is what happens to the items we can’t sell in our charity shops.

Most is sold on to wholesale markets by weight for further reuse and recycling. However, while we find a route to reuse for the vast majority of clothes donated to us, our priority is to put the vast volume of wearable clothes back into circulation so they can be worn again.

You can play your part in doing this by going through your wardrobe regularly to pass on what you are no longer wearing, and making sure each piece is in good enough condition to be sold in our charity shops.

There are three easy ways to pass on your clothes to TRAID: bring them to one of our charity shops, book a free home collection at www.traid.org.uk/ collections or drop them at one of our UK-wide network of clothes recycling banks.

Society is experiencing the first generation of young people who’ve grown up being taught about sustainability and consumer ethics at school and hearing about environmental issues across mainstream media. We’re now seeing a wave of savvy consumers who are beginning to tune into sustainable fashion, with more and more people looking to buy second-hand bargains, support good causes and consider environmental and ethical issues When I started out in business with my wife selling second-hand clothes back in 1980, even my own family, who had witnessed me wearing secondhand clothes during my teenage years, thought I was bizarre for doing that.

Buying your clothes from a charity shop was seen back then as a sign of someone hitting rock bottom financially and was also perceived by many as being dirty. It has taken almost 40 years since I started out for it to finally turn a corner and totally lose that stigma.

For 20 years, the charity TRAID have played a pivotal role in helping to achieve that. The way they stock and design their shops, their commitment to second-hand clothes as a force for good and the fact that they also fund projects to improve sustainability in fashion by reusing clothes.

Charity shops aren’t a sign of ‘bang goes the neighbourhood’. Instead, they can be vibrant creative

Photo right: Wayne Hemingway, Co-founder, HemingwayDesign.

spaces where the public can shop second-hand and make more positive ethical choices. A TRAID charity shop is an attractive retail space on the high street often with window displays that stand out from the usual mundane retail brands.

They have nailed the fact that well-presented second-hand shopping can be aspirational and deserves its place in any shopping centre or high street. On top of this, TRAID’s charity shops are cutting our carbon emissions by thousands of tonnes every year by reusing clothes, in a world where cutting carbon becomes ever more vital.

Charity shops are part of a future where society is thankfully not obsessed with conspicuous consumption. They are an important element of a mixed retail offer - and not a sign that retail is declining. They are a sign that society cares and is evolving for the better.

Here’s to another 20-years of TRAID and its successful work to make second hand not just acceptable, but desirable.

31

161, 241, 500

TRAID has stopped

46,069

Garments

of clothes from being thrown away

Water savings of

A carbon emissions saving of

ÂŁ68, 995,* 257 commited to increase reuse, provide sustainable education and fund projects fighting poverty and improving conditions in the fashion industry.

437,655

Raising funds to directly educate

89,777 children, young people and adults

73, 161, 241, 500 Litres

*Audited accounts 1999 - 2018

20 Years of TRAID #secondhandfirst